Affiliate orders and the Organic vs Ads split

For brands and agencies who see Ads GMV or Organic GMV in Cruva and want to know where it comes from, especially if it's nowhere near the revenue GMV Max shows in Seller Center or TikTok Ads Manager.

The short version

• Cruva calculates the Organic vs Ads split itself, from your individual affiliate orders. TikTok doesn't add it up anywhere: not in Seller Center, not in TikTok Ads Manager or TikTok for Business, and not in GMV Max.
• Ads = sales from creator posts that actually ran in your shop's ads (for example GMV Max). Organic = the rest of that post's or creator's sales. The two always add up to the GMV next to them.
• GMV Max is a black box. The revenue it reports is its own attribution, and it takes credit for nearly every sale of the products it promotes, including sales that would have happened without the ad. That number lands much closer to your GMV column than to Ads GMV.
• So Ads GMV is expected to be far lower than GMV Max revenue. That's not a sync delay or a bug. It's a different, stricter measurement: the money actually earned through posts that were shown as ads.

Where the split comes from

Every affiliate order TikTok records (Affiliate Center › Orders) says which commission it paid. When a creator's post is used as an ad creative in your shop's ads, for example in a GMV Max campaign, orders from it pay shop ads commission. Cruva reads every one of your affiliate orders and sorts them:

• An order that paid shop ads commission is Ads.
• Every other affiliate order is Organic, including orders from partner (agency) campaigns.

Cruva then totals those orders back up per video, LIVE, carousel, and creator. On My Affiliates, Videos, LIVEs and Carousels, Ads is the total of the post's or creator's ads orders and Organic is the rest of its GMV, so Organic GMV + Ads GMV = GMV. Organic Units / Ads Units and Organic Commission / Ads Commission split units and commission the same way.

Hover the info icon next to any Organic or Ads column header or stat card for a short reminder, and click Read more to open this page.

Why it doesn't match GMV Max revenue

The two numbers answer different questions:

• GMV Max revenue (Seller Center, TikTok Ads Manager, TikTok for Business, and Cruva's GMV Max pages) is what GMV Max claims it drove. TikTok doesn't show how it decides, and it credits the campaign with nearly all sales of the promoted products: organic sales, sales from posts it never served, and sales from your own account all included. You can't break it down by post or creator.
• Ads GMV in Cruva is what affiliate posts that were actually shown as ads earned, order by order. It's built from the orders themselves, not from the ad platform's attribution.

So if a shop has $100K of GMV in a week and GMV Max reports $90K of revenue, an Ads GMV of, say, $15K isn't missing $75K. It tells you that $15K came from creator posts running as ads, and the rest would have come through organically. That's the part GMV Max doesn't show you, and why Cruva builds it.

For a like-for-like check against GMV Max revenue, compare it with the GMV column for the same products and date range, not with Ads GMV.

What's in it, and what isn't

• Affiliate content only. Ads that use your own account's posts, or ads-only sales with no creator involved, aren't affiliate orders, so they're in neither Organic nor Ads. They still count toward your shop's Total GMV.
• About 3 months back. Cruva keeps your affiliate orders from about 3 months (90 days) before your shop first synced. Older sales have no order to go on, so the split shows -- (or counts them as organic in all-time totals).
• Cancelled and refunded orders are left out of the split and the Affiliate Orders stats.
• Sync timing (Cruva refreshes from TikTok every few hours; Seller Center can take up to a day to settle) explains small, short-lived differences. It never explains a gap the size of Ads GMV vs GMV Max revenue.

Everything else your affiliate orders power

The same order data drives:

• Organic / Ads columns on My Affiliates, Videos and Livestreams and Carousels, and in their CSV exports.
• The dashboard's Affiliate Orders tab: Affiliate Order GMV, Affiliate Organic GMV, Affiliate Ads GMV, Affiliate Orders, Organic Commission, Ads Commission, Pending Commission and Settled Commission, plus the order-by-order Affiliate orders table. See Your dashboard.
• Video Order GMV, LIVE Order GMV, Carousel Order GMV and Showcase Order GMV: order GMV by the content that drove it.
• The affiliate-order columns in Top Products and Top SKUs. See product sales and SKU performance.
• The real commission figure in profit widgets: TikTok's estimate until an order settles, then the amount actually paid.
• Commission Boost campaigns with separate rates for ads and organic sales. See Commission Boost.

Definitions for every one of these are in the Metric Glossary.

Common questions

Where is Ads GMV pulled from? It isn't pulled from anywhere. Cruva calculates it by adding up your affiliate orders that paid shop ads commission, per post and per creator. TikTok doesn't report this number in Seller Center, TikTok Ads Manager or GMV Max.

Why is Ads GMV so much lower than GMV Max revenue in Seller Center? GMV Max reports revenue by its own attribution and takes credit for nearly every sale of the products it promotes. Ads GMV only counts orders from creator posts that actually ran as ads. Expect GMV Max revenue to land near your GMV column instead.

Is the dashboard wrong, or just behind? Neither. Sync timing only causes small differences that settle within a day. A large gap between Ads GMV and GMV Max revenue is expected because they measure different things.

Which number should I show my client? Use Ads GMV to show what ads actually earned through creator posts, and Organic GMV for what creators sold on their own. GMV Max revenue tells you what the campaign claims, not what it added.

Can I see the individual orders behind a number? Yes. Open the Affiliate Orders tab on the dashboard, filter Type to Ads, and search for the creator. Export CSV downloads every order with its type.

Why does a video show "--" for Organic GMV and Ads GMV? Cruva has no affiliate orders for it, usually because its sales are older than about 3 months before your shop's first sync.

Does Ads GMV include ads on my own account's videos? No. It only covers affiliate (creator) content. Your own account's sales count toward Total GMV but not toward the split.